After 50 Years, Holocaust Still Matters

Column by Michael J. Franklin
Contributing Editor

I had considered not writing a column on the Holocaust this year. It is a
morbid topic and the events and statistics of 50 years ago are difficult to
make meaningful today. Moreover, it seems that beyond a few students, no
one at MIT really cares.

"Why should I write a column this year?" I asked a friend a few days ago.
"It seems that no one cares."

"I care," he responded. "Not all of my family made it out of Europe." He
went on to explain that people are becoming insensitive to the horrors of
mass destruction. Frequent news of deaths in Iraq or Kuwait, or of killings
and rapes in the former Yugoslavia, numbs the mind to any individual act
and blurs the distinctions between atrocities in the past and those in the
present.

The actions of the Germans were the culmination of centuries of Christian
and German anti-Semitism. The propaganda produced by the Nazis was accepted
by the populace partly because it was what they were familiar with: the
Jews diluted the German nation, caused the German defeat during the First
World War and sought to rule the world. To purge the nation of tainted
blood, to make Germany as strong as it once was, Hitler was determined to
resolve the "Jewish Question."

Slowly but inexorably the Jews were deprived of their rights and their
property both in Germany and the conquered nations. Jewish children were
denied access to public schools, parks were closed to Jews, they were
prohibited from using public transportation and owning private businesses.
But Hitler's "Final Solution" called for further action -- not just to
separate the Jews, but to eliminate them entirely.

As regular German troops invaded and conquered territories, special forces
called Einsatzgruppen followed to purge the area of Jews. Town by
town, village by village, person by person, Jews would be gathered,
stripped of their possessions and machined-gunned into a pit. Slow but
methodical, this process killed nearly 2 million Jews before a single
concentration camp was open.

In cities with large Jewish populations, ghettos were constructed and
filled to overflowing as Germans herded more and more people into the area.
Relief came only through death by starvation or disease, or by
"resettlement" into forced labor camps further east. Few initially knew the
real reason for these camps -- the German command seldom issued explicit
orders, and the stories told by the few escapees were not easily believed.
Eventually other governments learned of the massive killings, but chose to
take no action.

There was little hope for those that could escape. Few countries were
willing to accept large numbers of grimy refugees, and fewer still were
willing to accept Jews. Boats of refugees were turned away and Allied
bombers which could have destroyed the death camps did not. Pleas for help
went unheeded as the Allies focused on killing, rather than saving lives.
Even as the war rumbled to a close, the Germans diverted important war
resources to the process of killing Jews.

Why does it matter that millions of Jews died far across the Atlantic, 50
years ago? It is certainly of great concern for the survivors and their
culture, diminished by the loss of so many lives. And for those of us in
the present, who did not lose relatives or suffer from Nazi terror, the
tragedy serves as an example of a nation enflamed with age-old prejudice
which acts on that prejudice, and of a global society that watches, but
does not act to save, the victims of that prejudice. The hope is that the
world would learn from its mistakes, and intervene when necessary to save
lives.

A year ago, I could have written that last paragraph with some enthusiasm
and a vague hope that I would never see a situation fitting that
description. But as the war in Bosnia increases in ferocity, I see that the
society in which we live cares no more about the victims of deadly
prejudice now than it did 50 years ago. As the western governments ignored
and suppressed information about the death of Jews in Europe, so now are
western governments ignoring the evidence of "detention centers" and
"ethnic cleansing" in Yugoslavia.

By no means could I write that what is happening in the former Yugoslavia
is even a shadow of the Holocaust against the European Jews. They are
separate and distinct and the lives that are destroyed are those of
individuals in differing circumstances that cannot be statistically
compared. To simply fold them together under a heading of "atrocity,
western" mindlessly compares the virulent Nazi ideology with that of a
regional conflict. This comparison denies each tragedy's uniqueness and
diminishes if not obliterates the importance of anti-Semitism in the
former. They are not the same.

While most of us in these violent times are content to glance at the paper,
or even to write a column, it seems that some people care enough to act. An
article in The New York Times several months ago reported that one
relief effort in the Balkans had met with success. This effort, supported
by a number of Jewish organizations, had managed to get Jews out of
besieged cities without the loss of life.

While other organizations and countries posture and proclaim, while
cease-fires are signed and broken, while men are killed and women are
raped, one group is saving lives. So successful was this effort, reported
the Times, that "becoming Jewish" had entered the local slang as a
synonym for escaping. People who had never considered themselves Jewish
searched for proof of a Jewish grandparent to allow them to escape -- an
ironic contrast to half a century earlier, when such proof meant
death.

This year, Yom HaShoah -- Holocaust Remembrance Day -- falls on Sunday. The
events at MIT will be held on Thursday to commemorate the 50th anniversary
of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. In Lobby 7 and other sites across the
country, people will read the names of some of the victims of the Nazis.
Some may be relatives -- distant or close -- while most will be ordinary
people, all killed simply because they were Jewish. The day will pass and
life for us will go on, but on that day, remember the millions who died,
the very few who tried to save them, and for a change, take more action
than simply reading the headlines.